Orations (other than the Theological Orations) 45.10–45.30

…and he came forth God with what he had assumed, one out of two opposites, flesh and Spirit, of which the one deified and the other was deified. O new mingling! O strange blending! He who is comes to be, … through the mediation of an intelligent soul standing between the Godhead and the coarseness of flesh. And he who makes rich becomes poor: for he becomes poor in my flesh, that I may become rich in his Godhead. And he who is full is emptied: for he is emptied of his own glory for a little while, that I may share in his fullness. What is this wealth of goodness? What is this mystery concerning me? I received the image and did not keep it; he receives…

…my flesh, to save the image and to make the flesh immortal. He enters into a second communion, far stranger than the first, inasmuch as then he gave a share in the better, while now he takes a share in the worse. This is more godlike than the first; this is loftier for those who have understanding.

“But what has all this to do with us?” someone perhaps may say, one of the over-eager and too hot: “spur the colt round the turning-post; discourse to us on the things of the festival and on why we are gathered today.” This I will do, even though I began a little far back, forced by the argument and by longing. And it will perhaps not be amiss, for lovers of learning and of beauty, to treat briefly of the name of the Pascha itself; for this would be no unpleasant digression for the ears. This Pascha, great and venerable, is called Phaska by the Hebrews in their own language; and the word means “passing over”: historically, because of the flight and migration from Egypt to the land of Canaan; spiritually, because of the progress and ascent from things below to things above and to the land of promise. And what we have observed happening in many places of Scripture, that some names are changed from obscure to clearer, or from more rustic to more refined, we have observed here too. For some, thinking this to be the name of the saving passion, and turning the word into Greek by changing phi to pi and kappa to chi, called the day Pascha. And custom, taking up the word, made it stronger, the ears of the many running to it as to a more reverent word.

Now the divine apostle declared before us that the whole law is a shadow of things to come and of things perceived by the mind. And God, who before him gave oracles to Moses, said, when legislating about these things: “See, you shall make all things according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain”, showing the visible things as a sketch and outline beforehand of the invisible. And I am persuaded that none of these things was ordained in vain, nor irrationally, nor in a grovelling way, nor unworthily of God's legislation and of Moses' ministry, even if it is hard, going down into detail, to find for each of the shadows its own contemplation: all that has been legislated about the tabernacle itself, its measures and materials, and the Levites and ministers who carried them, and all about sacrifices and purifications and offerings; and that these can be contemplated only by those who are like Moses in virtue, or nearest to his training. For on the mountain itself God appears to human beings, partly coming down himself from his own lofty watch, partly leading us up from our lowliness below, that the uncontained may be contained, at least in measure, by mortal nature, as far as is safe. For otherwise it is impossible for the coarseness of a material body and a bound mind to come to the conception of God without help. Then, therefore, not all were judged worthy of the same rank and station, but one of this, another of that, each, I think, according to the measure of his own purification; and some were driven away altogether and permitted only to hear the voice from above, those who were bestial in character and unworthy of divine mysteries. [12] … us, who from the beginning were stolen away by sin and through pleasure as far as idolatry and unlawful bloodshed, … to be called back again and led back to our ancient state, through the tender mercies of our Father, who could not bear to lose so great a work of his own hand, man. How, then, were we to be called back, and what was to be done? The violent kind of cure was rejected, as not persuasive and even able to make the wound worse, because of our long-standing conceit; the gentle and kindly kind (was chosen) for correction. For a crooked sapling would not bear sudden force or the violence of a bending hand (it would sooner break than be straightened), nor would a spirited horse, past its youth, bear the tyranny of the bit without some coaxing and clicking of the tongue. For this reason the law is given us as a help, like a wall of separation between God and idols, leading us away from these and leading us back to him. And it concedes something small at the beginning, that it may gain the greater. It concedes sacrifices for a time, that it may establish God (among us); then, when the time comes, it abolishes the sacrifices too, wisely changing us by gradual withdrawals, and bringing us over to the Gospel already trained to obedience.

So, then, and for these reasons, the written law came in, gathering us to Christ; and this is the reason for the sacrifices, as I reckon it. But that you may not be ignorant of the depth of wisdom and the riches of his unsearchable judgments, he did not leave even the sacrifices themselves wholly unconsecrated, nor imperfect, nor going no further than the mere blood; but the great and, so to speak, in its first nature unsacrificeable victim was mingled with the sacrifices of the law, a purification not for a small part of the world nor for a short time, but for the whole world and for ever. For this reason a lamb is taken, because of its innocence, and as the clothing of the ancient nakedness. For such is the victim offered for us, a garment of incorruption, both in fact and in name. Perfect, not only because of the Godhead, than which nothing is more perfect, but also because of what was assumed, anointed with the Godhead and become what anointed it, and, I dare to say, God together with it. Male, as offered for Adam, or rather as the strong for the strong, for the first, who fell under sin; and above all as having in himself nothing feminine, nothing unmanly, but bursting the bonds of the virginal and maternal womb with great power, and born a male of the prophetess, as Isaiah announces. A year old, as the sun of righteousness, either setting out from there, or circumscribed in what is seen, and returning to itself, and blessed as the crown of goodness, everywhere equal to and like itself; and not only this, but also as giving life to the circle of the virtues, gently mingled and blended with one another by the law of love and order. Without blemish and without guile, as healing blemishes and the defects and stains that come from wickedness. For even if he took up our sins and bore our diseases, he himself suffered nothing of what needs healing. For he was tempted in all things in our likeness, yet without sin. For he who persecuted the light that shines in darkness did not overtake it. … and to use as fellow-workers in this those of like mind and like character. For this, I think, is what is meant by sharing with those nearest to the victim …

From this comes the sacred night, the adversary of this present confused life, in which the primeval darkness is dissolved, and all things come into light and order and form, and the former disorder receives order. From this we flee Egypt, the gloomy and persecuting sin, and Pharaoh the invisible tyrant, and his bitter taskmasters, being transferred to the world above; and we are set free from the clay and the brickmaking, from this … composition of the flesh, which in most people is scarcely restrained even by chaff-like reasonings. From this the lamb is slain, and action and word, that is, habit and activity, are sealed with the precious blood: these are the posts of our doors, I mean of the movements and opinions of the mind, rightly opened and shut by contemplation, since there is a limit even to thoughts. From this comes the last and heaviest plague on the persecutors, truly worthy of night; and Egypt mourns the first-born of her own reasonings and actions (which Scripture also calls the seed of the Chaldeans removed, and infants dashed against the rock and destroyed), and everything is full of shouting and crying; and then the destroyer withdraws from us, out of reverence and fear of the anointing. Then comes the removal of leaven for seven days (for this number is most mystical and corresponds to this world), the leaven of the old and sour wickedness, not of the nourishing and life-giving kind, so that nothing of Egyptian dough, no remnant of Pharisaic and godless teaching, may go with us. … that our word may have nothing watery or easily dissolved, but may be wholly firm and solid, and tested by the purifying fire, and free of everything material and superfluous; and let us be helped by the good coals that kindle and cleanse our understanding, from him who came to cast fire on the earth, the fire that consumes evil habits, and who hastens its kindling. Whatever, then, is fleshly and nourishing in the word will be eaten and consumed with the inward parts and hidden things of the mind, and given over to spiritual digestion, head and feet: the first contemplations about the Godhead and the last thoughts about the incarnation. We shall carry nothing outside, nor leave anything until morning; because most of our mysteries are not to be carried out to those outside, nor is there any purification after this night, and delay is not commendable for those who partake of the Word. For as it is good and dear to God not to let anger last through the day but to put it away before sunset, both literally and in the higher sense (for it is not safe for the sun of righteousness to go down on us in anger), so we must not keep such food overnight nor put it off to the next day. Whatever is bony and inedible and hard for us to understand will not be broken, by being badly divided and understood (I leave aside that, according to the history, not a bone of Jesus was broken, although death was hastened for the crucified because of the Sabbath); nor will it be thrown away and dragged about, that holy things may not be given to the dogs, the wicked tearers of the Word, as neither is the bright pearl of the Word given to the swine; but it will be consumed by fire, the fire by which the burnt offerings too are consumed, refined and preserved by the Spirit who searches and knows all things, not destroyed in water nor scattered, as was the head of the calf by Moses, the calf hastily made by Israel, to the reproach of their hardness. It is worth not passing over the manner of eating either, since the law does not, but carries contemplation even this far in the letter. We shall eat the lamb in haste, eating unleavened bread with bitter herbs, with our loins girded and our sandals on, and leaning on staffs like old men. In haste, that we may not suffer what Lot was forbidden by command, not to look round nor to stay in all the surrounding country but to escape to the mountain, that we may not be overtaken by the Sodomite and strange fire, nor be fixed as a pillar of salt for turning back to the worse, which is what delay brings about. With bitter herbs, because of the steep and uphill life according to God, especially for beginners, and higher than pleasures. For even if the new yoke is easy and the burden light, as you hear, this is because of the hope and the reward, far more abundant than the hardship; otherwise, who would not say that the Gospel is much harder and more laborious than the ordinances of the law? For while the law forbids the completion of sins, we are blamed for their causes, almost as for the deeds. “You shall not commit adultery”, says the law; but you, do not even desire, kindling the passion by curious and laborious looking. “You shall not murder”; but you, do not even strike back, but even offer yourself to the one who strikes. How much more philosophical is this! “You shall not swear falsely”; but you, do not swear at all, neither more nor less, since the oath begets perjury. “You shall not join house to house, nor field to field, oppressing the poor”; but you, even sell what was rightly acquired, and that eagerly, and be stripped for the poor, that you may lightly take up the cross and pass over to the things that are not seen. Let the loins of the irrational beasts be loose and ungirded, for they do not have the reason that masters pleasures (I need not say that even they know a limit of natural movement); but for you let there be restraint by the girdle around the desiring and neighing part (as the Scripture calls it, exposing the shamefulness of the thing), that you may eat the Pascha purely, having put to death your members that are on the earth, and imitating the girdle of John, the hermit and forerunner and great herald of the truth. I know also another girdle, the soldierly and manly one, from which some Syrians are called “well-girded” and some “single-girded”; of which God too speaks when he gives oracles to Job: “Gird your loins like a man, and give answer”; with which divine David also boasts of being girded with power from God, and he brings in God himself as clothed with power and girded, plainly against the ungodly; unless one prefers that the superabundance of his power, as it were held in check, is indicated in this way, just as he also puts on light as a garment. For who will withstand the unbounded greatness of his power and light? I ask, what have the loins in common with truth? What does holy Paul mean by saying, “Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth”? Perhaps that contemplation binds the desiring part tightly and does not allow it to be carried elsewhere. For what is disposed lovingly towards one thing does not have the same strength for other pleasures.

As for the sandals, let him who is about to touch the holy ground, trodden by God, take them off, as Moses did on the mountain, that he may bring nothing dead, nothing between God and men. So too if a disciple is sent to preach the Gospel, let him go philosophically and without superfluity; besides being without bronze and staff and having one tunic, he must also go barefoot, that the feet of those who bring good news of peace and every other good may appear beautiful. But let him who is fleeing Egypt and the things of Egypt be shod, for safety in general and especially against the scorpions and snakes that Egypt breeds in great numbers, so as not to be harmed by those that watch the heel, which we have been commanded to tread on. About the staff and its riddle, this is what I think. I know one staff for leaning on, and another that is pastoral and for teaching, which turns back the rational sheep. But the law now orders you to take the one that supports, so that you may not falter in your reasoning when you hear of the blood of God, and his passion and death; so that you may not be carried away into godlessness while acting as God's advocate; but without shame and without doubt eat the body, drink the blood, if you desire life, neither disbelieving the words about the flesh nor offended by those about the passion. Stand supported, firm, set fast, shaken in nothing by the adversaries, nor carried away by persuasive words. Stand on your own height; set your feet in the courts of Jerusalem; lean on the rock, that your steps according to God may not be moved.

What do you say? Thus it has seemed good, that you should leave Egypt, the iron furnace, and leave behind the idolatry there, and be led by Moses and by his legislation and generalship. I propose something that is not mine, or rather very much mine, if you contemplate it spiritually. Borrow from the Egyptians vessels of gold and silver; travel with these; provision yourself from what belongs to others, or rather from what is yours. The wage of your slavery and your brickmaking is owed to you; be clever yourself in demanding it back; rob honestly. You have suffered hardship there, fighting with the clay, this troublesome and filthy body, and building cities for others, cities without security, whose memory will perish with a noise. What then? Will you go out for nothing and without wages? Why will you leave to the Egyptians and the hostile powers what they acquired wickedly and will spend still worse? It is not theirs: they plundered it, they snatched it from him who said, “Mine is the silver and mine is the gold, and I will give it to whom I will.” Yesterday it was theirs, for it was permitted; today the Master brings it and gives it to you, to use well and for salvation. Let us make friends for ourselves from the mammon of unrighteousness, that when we fail they may receive us in the time of judgment. [21] If you are a Rachel or a Leah, a patriarchal and great soul, steal the idols of your father too, whatever you find, not to keep them but to destroy them; if you are a wise Israelite, carry them over to the land of promise; and let the persecutor grieve over them, and learn, outwitted, that he tyrannized in vain and enslaved those better than himself. If you do this, and so go out of Egypt, I know well that you will be guided by the pillar of fire and cloud by night and by day; the desert will be tamed, the sea will be cut for you, Pharaoh will be drowned, bread will rain down, rocks will gush with water, Amalek will be defeated not by arms only but also by the hands of the righteous, forming at once a prayer and the unconquerable trophy of the cross; the river will be cut off, the sun will stand still, the moon will be held back, walls will be thrown down even without siege engines, hornets will run ahead, making a way for Israel and keeping off the foreigners; and all the other things that are recorded after these and with these will be given you by God, so that I need not stretch out a long discourse. Such is the feast you are keeping today; such is the birthday you celebrate of him who was born for you, and the burial of him who suffered; such for you is the mystery of the Pascha. These things the law sketched; these things Christ fulfilled, the abolisher of the letter, the perfecter of the Spirit, who by what he suffered teaches suffering, and by what he was glorified grants us to be glorified with him.

We must, then, examine a matter and a doctrine overlooked by most, but by me very much inquired into. To whom was the blood shed for us offered, and for what was it shed, the great and famous blood of God, who is both high priest and victim? For we were held by the evil one, sold under sin, having received pleasure in exchange for wickedness. And if the ransom belongs to none other than the one who holds us, I ask to whom this was paid, and for what cause. If to the evil one, alas for the outrage! if the robber receives a ransom not only from God but God himself as the ransom, and so extravagant a payment for his tyranny, for whose sake it would have been just for him to spare us. If to the Father, first, how? For it was not by him that we were held. Second, by what reasoning does the blood of the Only-begotten delight the Father, who did not even accept Isaac when he was offered by his father, but exchanged the sacrifice, giving a ram instead of the rational victim? Or is it clear that the Father receives it, not because he asked for it or needed it, but because of the economy, and because man had to be sanctified by the humanity of God, so that he himself might deliver us, overpowering the tyrant by force, and lead us back to himself through the mediation of the Son, who also arranged this for the honour of the Father, to whom he is seen to yield in all things? So much for Christ; let the greater part be honoured with silence. The bronze serpent is hung up against the biting serpents, not as a type of him who suffered for us, but as a counter-type; and it saves those who look at it, not because it is believed to live, but because it has been put to death, and puts to death with it the powers that are under it, destroyed as it deserved. And what epitaph from us befits it? “Where, O death, is your sting? Where, O Hades, is your victory?” You have been struck down by the cross; you have been put to death by the life-giver; breathless, dead, motionless, inactive, even if you keep the form of a serpent, set up on high on a pole. [23] We shall partake of the Pascha, now still in type, though more openly than in the old (for the Pascha of the law, I dare to say, was a dimmer type of a type); but a little later more perfectly and purely, when the Word drinks it new with us in the kingdom of the Father, revealing and teaching what he has now shown in measure. For what is now being made known is always new. What that drink and that enjoyment are, it is ours to learn, and his to teach and to share the word with his disciples. For teaching is food, even for the one who feeds. But come, let us too partake of the law in a Gospel way, not literally; perfectly, not imperfectly; eternally, not temporarily. Let us make our head not the Jerusalem below but the mother city above; not the one now trodden down by armies, but the one glorified by angels. Let us sacrifice not young calves, nor lambs that put forth horns and hoofs, in which there is much that is dead and without feeling; but let us offer to God a sacrifice of praise on the altar above, with the choir above. Let us draw aside the first veil, approach the second, and look into the Holy of Holies. Shall I say the greater thing? Let us sacrifice ourselves to God; or rather, let us sacrifice every day and in every movement. Let us accept everything for the sake of the Word; let us imitate the passion by sufferings, honour the blood by blood, go up eagerly onto the cross. Sweet are the nails, even if very painful. For to suffer with Christ and for Christ is better than ease with others. [24] … “Do not touch me”: stand far off; reverence the Word, but do not be grieved, for he knows to whom he will appear first. Inaugurate the resurrection; help Eve, who first fell, who first greeted Christ and made him known to the disciples. Become Peter or John; hurry to the tomb, running against and running with, competing in the noble contest. Even if you are outstripped in speed, win by zeal, not stooping to look into the tomb but going inside. And if, like Thomas, you are left out when the disciples are gathered, to whom Christ appears, do not disbelieve when you see; and if you disbelieve, believe those who tell you; and if not even them, be convinced by the marks of the nails. If he goes down to Hades, go down with him. Learn the mysteries of Christ there too, what is the economy of the twofold descent, what its reason: does he simply save all by appearing, or there too only those who believe?

And if he goes up to heaven, go up with him; be with the angels who escort him, or with those who receive him. Bid the gates be lifted up, be made higher, that they may receive him, made higher by his suffering. Answer those who are perplexed because of the body and the tokens of the passion, which he did not have when he came down and with which he now goes up, and who therefore ask, “Who is this King of glory?”: that it is the Lord, strong and mighty, both in all that he has always done and does, and in the present war and victory on behalf of humanity; and give to the double question a double answer. And if they wonder, saying, as in Isaiah's dramatic scene, “Who is this who comes from Edom”, and from earthly things? or “How are the garments red of him who is bloodless and bodiless, as of one who treads the wine-press and has trodden a full press?”, put forward the beauty of the robe of the body that suffered, adorned by the passion and made bright by the Godhead, than which nothing is more lovely or more beautiful.

To this what do they say to us, the slanderers, the bitter calculators of the Godhead, the accusers of things worthy of praise, those who are dark about the light and uneducated about wisdom, for whom Christ died in vain, the ungrateful creatures, the formations of the evil one? Do you charge God with this benefaction? Is he small for this, because for your sake he is humble? Because the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep, came to the one that wandered, upon the mountains and hills on which …

… or rather, which will he forgive: those who wrongly contract him, or those who cut him apart? For the former ought to have divided, and the latter to have joined; the one in number, the other in Godhead. Do you stumble at his flesh? So did the Jews. Or do you call him a Samaritan (and the rest I will pass over in silence)? Do you disbelieve his Godhead? Not even the demons did this, O you more unbelieving than demons and more senseless than Jews! The Jews took the title “Son” as an expression of equal honour; the demons knew that he who drove them out was God, for they were convinced by what they suffered. But you neither accept the equality nor confess the Godhead. It would have been better for you to be circumcised and possessed by a demon, if I may say something even laughable, than to be uncircumcised and healthy but in a wicked and godless state. But as for the war against them, let it either be ended, if they would at last come to their senses, or be put off, if they do not wish it but stay as they are. In any case we shall fear nothing, contending for the Trinity with the Trinity.

Now we must sum up the discourse in this way. We came into being that we might be well treated; we were well treated once we had come into being. We were entrusted with paradise that we might live in delight. We received a commandment that we might win approval by keeping it, God not being ignorant of what would happen, but laying down the law of free will. We were deceived because we were envied; we fell because we transgressed; we fasted because we did not fast, overpowered by the tree of knowledge. For the commandment was ancient, of the same age as we, a kind of schooling of the soul and a restraint on luxury, to which we were rightly subjected, that what we lost by not keeping it we might recover by keeping it. We needed God made flesh and put to death, that we might live; we were put to death with him, that we might be cleansed; we rose with him, because we were put to death with him; we were glorified with him, because we rose with him. [29] … the signs at the tomb and after the tomb, which who could worthily celebrate in song? But nothing is like the wonder of my salvation: a few drops of blood re-forming the whole world, and becoming to all people what rennet is to milk, binding us and drawing us together into one.

But O Pascha, great and holy, purification of the whole world! For I will speak to you as to one alive. O Word of God, and light, and life, and wisdom, and power! For I rejoice in all your names. O offspring and outflow and seal of the great Mind! O Word conceived and Man beheld, who bear all things, binding them by the word of your power! May you now have this discourse, not as firstfruits but perhaps as the completion of our offering, a thanksgiving and at the same time a supplication, that we may suffer no ill beyond the necessary and sacred things among which we have lived. And may you stay the tyranny of the body over us (you see, Lord, how great it is and how it bends us down), or your own sentence, if we are to be brought down by you. And if we depart worthily of our longing and are received into the heavenly tents, perhaps there too we shall offer you acceptable sacrifices on your holy altar, O Father, and Word, and Holy Spirit; for to you belongs all glory, honour, and might, to the ages of ages. Amen.